Release, Part Seventeen

by Tangerine

The weather in England matched Warren's mood, depressed and dreary. It was a fitting place to be, Warren realised, for to be any place else was to live a lie. He had read 'Wuthering Heights' at the Professor's request, but he hadn't understood until now just how dreadful a place it must have been, how moody and dull, how it could drive a person mad with sadness.

"It's not always like this," Betsy said suddenly to shatter the eerie silence.

Warren nodded, pulling his fingers away from the pane of glass protecting him from the outside world. He sat with his back to her, protecting it, for it hurt to sit in any other position. The ride over the old, worn roads was rough, and by arching his body toward the window, he also shielded himself from her.

"The moors aren't always so dead."

* * *

Betsy unlocked the door to Braddock Manor and moved to disable the security system, but to her surprise, it was already down. She looked around slowly, noticing the coat and the wet boats by the door, and the umbrella hanging on the wall, dripping water into small puddles below it.

"Brian?" She called out, inwardly swearing. She hadn't considered the possibility he might be here, but after the loss of his powers, she supposed there wasn't any other place he could go.

"Betsy?" The voice came from the stairs to the caverns below the massive house, and the door opened slowly, his blond head peering out with suspicious blue eyes. He was attired only in a ratty pair of overalls, with a pair of glasses holding his long hair from his face. "What are you doing here?"

"Why didn't you tell you'd be here?" She asked immediately, pointing at him accusingly.

Brian stared at her finger then to her face, noticing something had changed. Much to his dismay, she wasn't the same Betsy he had seen months ago. "Something has happened, hasn't it?" He asked, sensing the feelings stirring within his twin but unable to decipher them to find the truth. "What is it?"

Betsy took his hand, leading him to the door. Brian moved without question and gasped in shock at the sight he beheld.

Warren looked up from where he sat as he saw them appear in the door. Somehow, seeing Betsy's brother like this without warning, lessened the fear he had about their meeting, for he really didn't care anymore. It had lost all importance.

Brian looked to Betsy in question, and she looked to Warren. Warren looked away, letting his eyes fall to the wet ground. He knew what he must look like to the man, and he didn't care. He didn't care his skin was a pale grey tickled with a faint suggestion of blue. He didn't care his hair was greasy and limp. He didn't care his eyes were bloodshot and pale. He didn't care his back was scarred and mutilated. He simply couldn't care.

It hurt too much.

"Can you get the bags?" Betsy asked quietly, and Brian nodded placidly, hurrying over to the open trunk. He pulled out the largest suitcase and nearly dropped it, unaccustomed to his lack of strength. Betsy said nothing, knowing it would harm his pride to say anything. Instead, she grasped hold of Warren's upper arm, forcing him into a stand, and there was a brief flash of fear in Warren's eye that just as quickly disappeared, but not before Brian saw it.

They proceeded slowly into the huge house, Brian going first to clear the way of his mess, knowing Betsy wouldn't likely appreciate ending up on the floor as she supported her lover as he coped with what it felt like to stand without the mighty wings. This wasn't exactly the way Brian had planned to meet Warren, but there was little he could do now to rectify that. They were both here.

They entered the sitting room, Brian disappearing to bring the rest of the bags into the mansion, and Betsy helped Warren carefully onto the couch. He looked around, his eyes resting on a mammoth painting of a man and a woman, sitting together in the very room.

"My parents," Betsy supplied, sitting next to Warren, who had already moved away from her. "It's the only image we have left of my father. He didn't like having his photograph taken, for on Otherworld, it wasn't the custom. I think I'd forget what he looked like if not for that portrait."

His eyes following the path of paintings lining the other walls, they paused on a painting of a young woman, her long locks of gold shimmering in their splendour and her blue eyes barely containing her passion. "That's you."

"A long time ago," Betsy conceded, brushing her purple hair away from her dark violet eyes. "Before the purple, before the... change. I wanted to take it down the last time I was here, but Brian wouldn't hear of it."

"You can't forget who you are," Warren said in a hush, turning away from the painting. There was something about this place that made him fell as if time had been left behind. The half Gothic, half Victorian style architecture, the interior design, every single detail made him feel as if he had become misplaced in history somehow.

"I know." Bending near to him, Betsy brushed a stray lock of golden hair from Warren's troubled face, missing the flinch of his body. She had focussed on his sharp features and how his strong chin seemed more pronounced with the odd tint his skin had taken when the bright blue had left to be replaced by a more dreary, more dull tone. It made him look ill. No. It made him look dead.

Brian cleared his throat loudly, painfully aware of what he was disrupting. "The car is unloaded. I was just about to put dinner on if you're interested."

Betsy smiled, the corners of her mouth turning up slightly. "Trying to ensure we don't stay long, dear brother?"

"Why ever would I want that, sister dearest?" Brian laughed, and Betsy mimicked the chortle sadly, paying careful attention to the sorrowful look on Warren's face. Brian noticed it, too. "Let me get changed, and I'll prepare the meal. Fear not, Elisabeth, I have been known to cook successfully a few times in my life."

Brian spared a last look to the troubled couple before turning to leave. He knew in time he would receive an explanation in full, and he could wait for it, but deep in the pit of his stomach was a little voice screaming at him that he was better off remaining in the dark.

* * *

Betsy stopped in front of Warren's room, wishing he'd say their room to acknowledge he wanted to be with her, but she knew it might be wanting too much. He had been through such trauma she couldn't expect him to be as he was before.

Opening the door, he walked in and Betsy followed, but he turned around, stopping her from going any further. Betsy looked to him, staring straight into his eyes, and he returned the glare icily, making plain his desire she leave him be.

"The bandages on your back have to be changed," Betsy stated quietly. "You can't possibly hope to do it alone." Warren backed into the room like a ghost. "You shouldn't have to do it alone. Let me help you, please, let me help..."

The door shut in her face, and she turned her head away from it, forcing herself to be strong, forcing herself to ignore how he had turned her away.

Turning on her heel, she proceeded from whence she had come.

* * *

An hour later, as Brian stood busy at work in the kitchen, Betsy emerged from the west wing, looking tired and agitated. Brian raised a blond eyebrow in question, noticing Warren was nowhere to be seen.

"He's... tired," Betsy replied to the silent question, sitting down at the table and pushing her hair away from her face as she leaned forward with two elbows on the surface. Massaging her temples wearily, she sighed deeply, wishing the light in the kitchen was far brighter than it was.

Brian pulled two steaming hot meat pies from the oven, leaving the third to burn as it pleased, and sat across from his twin, moving the plate toward her. Betsy reached for the meal, and Brian put a hand on hers, looking intently at her. "What happened, Betsy? And please don't lie to me. It's hard not to see something has changed here, with you, with him."

Betsy closed her eyes, pulled her hand away and leaned back against the chair, running her palms over her face to loosen the sore flesh. "Oh God, I don't know where to start everything's been so horrible."

"Start at the beginning," Brian suggested calmly.

Betsy laughed weakly, placing a hand across her mouth to stop herself. "If I knew where the commencement was, I would tell you, but I simply don't know. Needless to say, I wish there had never been a beginning, but nowhere near as much as I wish there had never been an end.

"Weeks ago, Candy Southern, the lover Warren thought dead, returned from her grave. I knew from the beginning, my instinct told me as much, that something wasn't right with her, but Warren refused to believe it. Even as the days progressed, and she grew steadily more aloof and cold, I knew he still clung to some hopeless ideal he held about her, but I don't think either of us ever suspected she'd do what she did.

"Three, maybe four, nights ago, I can't remember, she finally made her move. She caught me unawares as I slept, after having fought with Warren over memories that turned out not be his own. She drugged me, and while half unconscious, I was dragged into the hall, where she left me alone. I do not think when she put me there, she knew what would happen to me, and really, I remember nothing until Bobby woke me. According to him, I had merged with the shadows and remained submerged for God knows how long. I almost lost myself, Brian, I almost did. The light bought me back, it was excruciating and I would sell my soul not to go through it again, but the light brought me back."

Brian grew pale and worried with every word she spoke. He leaned nearer to her, looking intently at her face to read the emotions she had become so inapt at hiding. "I felt something, several days back. I could not describe it at the time, but it was like this terrible cold had overtaken my body, but everything I touched felt as though it seared my flesh. It the morning it was gone, but I still remember it vividly."

"I must have projected it onto you, then," Betsy deduced, mirroring his move without realising it. "I'm sorry, Brian, but you've been apart of my mind so long I sometimes forget that if the thought is strong enough, you can feel it even in England."

"It was nothing compared to what you must have felt," Brian replied quietly, dismissing her misplaced apology. He looked down as another thought crossed his mind and looked back up to Betsy, catching her purple eyes. "What of Warren?"

"Warren? God, Warren's been completely destroyed." Brian moved to protest, but Betsy shook her head, a tear slipping down her face. "It's true. He knows it, and so do I. I saw him that night, bloody and naked, his body totally ripped apart, his face twisting in his troubled sleep as he relived the horror in his mind. He had been an Angel, but I saw him at his most vulnerable, nearly dead and dying still." Betsy breathed deeply to regain her composure. "When you looked at him, what did you see?"

Snapped from his thoughtfulness as he began to suspect there was more to the eye than what Betsy had seen, Brian stared quizzically before answering, "I saw Warren."

"No, Brian, when you looked at him, when you caught his eyes or looked at his face, what did you see in it, in them?" Brian made no move to answer, and Betsy reached over and squeezed his hand. "Please, Brian, I need to know what you saw when you looked at him."

"I saw Death," Brian whispered finally, shivering at the mention as the cold wind outside began to howl as if on cue to the story. "On his face, in every line and crevice, it was there. I've seen the dead, Betsy, and all looked more alive than he."

"His wings are gone and with them, his soul. His body, it appears, was dead long before I met him, and to hold all that knowledge within him, to hold the horrid memories in his mind, I can't understand why he lives now, not after all that."

"I can tell you, for Death was not the only thing I saw on his face." Brian smiled gently at his sister's naivety. "It's love. I'm not blind, Betsy, I saw how his eyes flickered with life when you spoke to him. It's love, pure and simple, and that is why he lives now. Love."

* * *

It hurt. That's all he could feel, all he could focus on. He was exhausted though he had slept for days. He was in pain though he had so many drugs in his system he could barely think straight. For the first time in years, he wanted sleep and would willingly take the deadening dreams of Candy as they came. In truth, he yearned for sleep.

In his mind's eye was the horrid image he had seen, the void left by his wings. He should have let Betsy help him, he should have let the one person who would love him to death help bare the weight of his suffering, but he had forced her away. Would she come back to him? Would she forgive him for being too proud and ashamed to show himself to her?

"Warren?" The voice called in the dark and his head shot up in horror, his mind racing with endless ideas and situations he would have to face. He couldn't handle anything more!

Forcing himself to calm down, Warren looked around the dark room, but he could see there was nobody there.

"Warren?"

His face buried in the sheets, he turned his head again and this time he caught a glimpse of something, of somebody, but he couldn't remember the voice, or was he just hearing it wrong? A mind could play cruel tricks on a tired body.

"Warren?" Betsy, it was Betsy, and he relaxed onto the bed, whimpering as the pain became unbearable again. The momentary shift in attention had cured him, but the minute his mind was free, it returned to its suffering.

"Warren, sweetheart, why aren't you sleeping?" She ran her fingers through his golden hair, tousling it messily. "Are you hurting? Should I get you some warm milk to help you sleep?" He remained silent. "It is the pain, isn't it?"

Warren clutched the sheets between his fingers, wishing her far, far away from him. He couldn't bare to think of how he would feel alone, but having her so close, knowing how much she cared, it frightened him to know he would lose it all.

"Leave me alone," he rasped with a gasp, his voice deep and cold.

"Warren," Betsy murmured, moving her hand down his head to his back, careful of the wounds as she danced upon his clothed flesh. Warren tried to push to his elbows from where he lay, but the gentle pressure she applied on his body would not allow him to move. "Calm down, Angel..."

"Don't call me that!" He screamed suddenly, and slapped her, knocking her off the bed. She hit the wood floor with a loud thump, her head the first contact with the hard surface. Warren stared in horror of what he had done, and forcing himself to move, he scrambled over to her, hugging her tightly with no regard for his well-being. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Betsy was too stunned to make sense of his irrational words. The throbbing in her head was great, and she could feel the warm trickle of blood slide down her face... no... it wasn't blood. It was water, tears.

"I'm sorry," Warren murmured again and again, frantic in his disgust of his horrid, unforgivable actions. Stroking her hair with soft hands, he mumbled his mute apologies, and when the confusion left, Betsy brought her hands to his head, hugging him in return. "I'm sorry, I never meant to hit you, Betts, I never want to hurt you."

"It's okay; I'm okay," she assured him, ignoring the pain. It would equal nothing in the end, just like the tears she cried for him when he was unable to cry for himself would mean even less than nothing in the aftermath.

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